SmugMug Price Increase

Portfolio is nothing more than a glorified gallery. You get watermarking and you can self-fulfill, and other things. But you cannot set prices, sell for a profit, etc. Some folks are "pros" who make a few extra dollars on the side. The pros were grandfathered into the Business option if they have prices set, and portfolio if they do not have prices set.

Basically they know alot of photographers like selling their work and figure they can make money off it. Not to mention they matched their competitor's price (Zenfolio). I'll be downgrading and looking for options myself.

The email I got acknowledged I set prices and it gives me the option to renew at $250 not $150. Also gives the option to downgrade. Additionally I have 2 smugmugs. I got another for my other biz I've had for many years. I used it to host videos in galleries and web stuff like flyers in private galleries for me. I also put event and other photos my customers might want to see on there, like competitions and stuff. I didnt receive an email on that account about the price increase.

tkbslc wrote in post #14933576
You ever price enterprise class storage? You can get your foot in the door for less than the price of an average 4 bedroom home. We are shopping for a moderate sized one (50-60TB) and my quotes have ranged from $250,000-$500,000. It's a whole different ballgame when it has to stay on line 24x7 and handle many users simultaneously.

But what was it 2 years ago for the same storage? My point - prices for storage have come down year after year.

Justaddwata wrote in post #14933829
But what was it 2 years ago for the same storage? My point - prices for storage have come down year after year.

While file sizes have gone up exponentially. I'm not supporting the price increase, but I'm just sayin'...

Bryan

Justaddwata wrote in post #14933829
But what was it 2 years ago for the same storage? My point - prices for storage have come down year after year.

They don't come down in price, you just get more storage for the same price. But pictures keep getting bigger and people are storing more of them.

Which is what everyone is saying, tiered plans based on usage not limitation of features.

Can I make over 100$ worth of profit to justify the 150 ->250, ontop of their 15% mark-up ? Would it be worth it ?

Maybe they're in trouble financially, since the increase is so dramatic and sudden, thats not a good thing for people with alot of photos on there.

Csae wrote in post #14933986
Which is what everyone is saying, tiered plans based on usage not limitation of features.

Can I make over 100$ worth of profit to justify the 150 ->250, ontop of their 15% mark-up ? Would it be worth it ?

Maybe they're in trouble financially, since the increase is so dramatic and sudden, thats not a good thing for people with alot of photos on there.

More than likely they are in TITANIC trouble and the iceberg has already clipped the ship and it's taking on water fast. Now when Captain Andy shows up here to announce that it's just a slight inconvenience before we continue on our profitable journey together, take a good look and see who has already jumped overboard. Gotta go now, my lifeboat is ready.

bps wrote in post #14933834
While file sizes have gone up exponentially. I'm not supporting the price increase, but I'm just sayin'...

Actually file sizes have not grown exponentially. In fact it's been more like logarithmically, with the D800 being an outlier. Most of DSLR cameras today are around 18-20 MP. However, thanks to all of the promotions done by people like Scott Bourne and the Photofocus podcast, more pros and semi-pros than ever have been flocking to SmugMug.

That said, I cannot believe all of those people have so many photos in the service that price increase is justified when Amazon's storage prices have been going down year after year.

If file sizes are the main issue, just cap the freakin' file size to a certain number, limit the gallery sizes (or something similar), tier everything from that and be done with it!
Charge more to the people who use it more (just like cell phone use). Just because I sell a few images per year, I now have to pay $250/year? I don't even make that much through their site per year! I am not a veteran pro who sells a bunch and makes a ton, I'm just starting out.

Maybe they should have tiered packages for pros who sell? I don't know, maybe I'm just out of line here.

selling has not been a huge thing for me honestly. It was just nice to have. I do this part time and my customer base primarily wants a dvd/digital copy. It was nice to have direct print to the pro labs, too.

I'm good to renew my Pro account for one more year at the old pricing, but I had been considering going back one tier. This has pushed me in that direction for sure.

Thanks for all your feedback so far, we really appreciate it. Feel free to email our help desk if you have any questions or concerns about the price increase. Not to worry, SmugMug is not in trouble financially and your photos are safe and sound as always.

I will be dropping them. Such a waste you can get the same amount of features pretty much with other services that are cheaper. I've been using SmugMug for so long too!

If they were smart, and wanted to follow their complaint that data is "too expensive" they would have made the new 300 dollar rate for unlimited...and then made a version that holds say 100 or 1000 gigs for the rate we used ot have, with the same ability to sell, and make money at the marked up rates...I don't see why they would overthink this..unless..perhaps.​.they want to actually kill us for all of our monies!

Thorrulz wrote in post #14934158
Now when Captain Andy shows up here

Hi, see my blog post from a month ago, thanks!

A price increase this huge is just dumb. I mean at the very least what is being changed or upgraded to make it worth spending the extra money? More engineers? So what, it works perfectly fine the way it is. I want to know if spending more money will make me more money, or if im just going to be spending more money... and barely making any.

I personally try to be consciences of the space I use on there. Mainly to save time on uploading not going to lie, but In lightroom I re-size all my uploads just small enough that the largest print size still shows up on the list. I have a 1 day proof time so if someone orders a print that large, -then- I will upload the fullsize photo.

They offer a good service and it allows people to order stuff without ever talking to me; which is nice for events. However I already payout a percentage of my profit for selling on top of the monthly fee. I can only assume while the bandwidth has raised, the video failed to show the flow-chart of the subscriptions raising and the profit percentage they taking from all the new users. I know I can buy 3terrabyte external drives for 130 bucks I only have 90gigs stored on smugmug.